76-year-old security guard armed with power of love

An angry teenager barged onto the school bus parked outside Buffalo Grove High School to continue some drama with his girlfriend.

Seventy-six-year-old security guard Sven Cederberg, who served in the Marines under John Glenn during the Korean War, calmly stepped into the fray. The teen wasn't having it.

"He said, 'Go f yourself.' He gave me a couple of thunks on my chest," Cederberg says with the nonchalant air of someone bored with that part of the story.

Cederberg, who lives in Mount Prospect, could have filed a criminal complaint and let a court judge decide the teen's fate. An outspoken Christian, the forgiving Cederberg didn't see the point in saddling a kid with a criminal record.

"I'm going to let you make this call," Cederberg told the teen as he gave him the option of attending a much-less severe peer mediation, where fellow students would determine a punishment.

"With tears in his eyes, he said peer mediation," Cederberg says. The grateful kid earned a 10-day suspension, a second chance and a lesson that might stick with him for life.

"This guy comes up to me almost every day and shakes my hand," Cederberg says. "It's so rewarding."

Stories of kids shaking Cederberg's hand or thanking him for some act of kindness are so common, the student newspaper put the security guard on the front page of "The Charger."

"So many of the students here love Sven because he has such a kind heart," says teacher and newspaper adviser Lauren Kraft. "He seems to care about each student he comes in contact with."

One of the student editors-in-chief, Melanie Driscoll, came up with the idea of writing about Cederberg, and reporter Bridget Maloni's story captured the man.

"He definitely cares for people beyond anything," senior Katie Palazzolo told Maloni. "It's the simple things. It's changing one little thing in another person's life, things that he knows make a difference."

The Charger scooped me on a story I've known for two decades. I met Cederberg and his wife Nancy through their role as AIDS volunteers, after their 24-year-old son, Kent, a Christian missionary and registered nurse, died of the disease in 1987. Their Love & Action charity told Kent's story around the globe and offered love and action in communities where people sometimes were steeped in hate and blame.

A former printer, Cederberg ended up at Buffalo Grove High School as a way to continue helping young people handle whatever the world throws their way. When kids lash out, Cederberg responds with forgiveness and compassion.

"I don't use the baseball bat. I say, 'This isn't worth a detention.' They say, 'You are right, Sven,' and that's the end of it," Cederberg says.

When an exhaustive search for a student's missing notebook turned up empty, Cederberg kept an eye peeled.

"Later that evening, at 9:30 I found it. So I took it over to his house at 10 o'clock," Cederberg says. "This kid is so elated and every day he comes up to me."

Former toughs headed down the wrong path make a special trip to the school years later to thank Cederberg for making them see the light. A Jewish student who knows how important God and Christianity is to Cederberg wanted to give him credit.

"How do you nominate someone for saint?" the young man asked.

"I've got good news for you. I'm already a saint," Cederberg replied, quoting from a New Testament passage that refers to all believers as saints. "So you can forget about me. I'm OK."

Embarrassed by The Charger's coverage, the soft-spoken Cederberg still wrote the students a thank you for their good work and kind words.

That's how a great-grandparent who is approaching 80 still manages to handle the rigors of being a high school security guard.

"It's a love approach," Cederberg says simply. "Without the love approach, it just ain't going to work."